Netherlands looking for Euro Exit as Supercomputer prepares for Financial Judgement Day

Published time: 7 Mar, 2012 00:30 Edited time: 7 Mar, 2012 11:48

Netherlands looking for Euro Exit as Supercomputer prepares for Financial Judgement Day

“We will keep all options – including military action – on the table to prevent [Iran] from obtaining a nuclear weapon," Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told America's Pro-Israel lobby AIPAC today. Swiss money manager and Gloom Boom Doom Report publisher Marc Faber isn't waiting for war. He said in an interview he thinks “sooner or later, the US or Israel will strike Iran – it's almost inevitable.”

Faber recommends a formula of 25% cash, 25% equities, 25% gold, and 25% real estate or real estate equities as a formula to provide some safety against these financial headwinds. We ask Mike Shedlock, Investment Advisor for Sitka Pacific Capital and author of the popular Global Economic Analysis blog, what he thinks. Meanwhile, more trouble brews in euroland as Eurostat reports that the eurozone contracted 0.3% as estimated in Q4 from Q3. Meanwhile, Greece tries to get investors on board with its debt swap deal by the Thursday deadline. As for bondholders taking the haircut, Greece's Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said in an interview, “this is the best offer because this is the only one, the only existing offer.”

Meanwhile a detailed 73-page report is circulating called "The Netherlands and the euro," and it shows the Netherlands would benefit by leaving the eurozone. Mike "Mish" Shedlock talks about it and explains why Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain are going to need lots more money and Germany and the Netherlands will end up footing the bill.

Super Tuesday has voters heading to the polls in Republican primaries as the presidential election campaign season gains more steam. The auto bailouts have driven some of the debate recently with Mitt Romney’s race in Motor City home state Michigan and also with attack ads including one lampooning the Chevy Volt, targeting Barack Obama and GM.

You've heard the horse race partisan analysis, so we look at what may really be behind criticism of the auto bailouts from the same people who supported bailouts for the banks (e.g. Mitt Romney). Is it because Wall Street wants the bailouts for themselves but bankruptcies for everyone else so they can benefit off buying them up?

And we debate Watson, the computer jeopardy champion, going to work on Wall Street, and whether or not guilty people are harder workers as a study finds.